...party day!

Madison's day of fun started off with a makeover at Libby Lu. That is a fun girly store located inside of Carson Pirie Scott. This was part of her birthday present from us and she had been looking forward to it for weeks! They paint your nails, put on a little eyeshadow and lip gloss, and do a fun hair makeover complete with fairy dust! She even got to pick out 5 things from the store as a gift.
Then we were off to Build a Bear which has become a birthday tradition for her. This year she picked the pink leopard and dressed her in a velvet black and pink cat suit. She wanted to name her Hannah Montana, but I talked her into naming her Miley which is Hannah Montana's real name instead.

This is the only picture I have of the two kids for the day. Austin spent the day with Nana and Papa while we took Madison to the mall, then later he went to his friend's house instead of the girls party.

Nana could hardly recognize Madison when she arrived to the party. Thanks mom and dad for all your help during the party... I couldn't have done it without you.

Madison doing one last mirror check before her friends start to arrive...

Once all of the girls arrived we started off by doing a picture frame craft. I took a picture of each girl with Madison and will be sending them as soon as they are printed to put in the frames.

Here is a group shot of all 10 girls.

After we all had some pizza it was time for Madison's favorite part of the night... opening her gifts. Gee... do you think she likes this one??

Thanks Sue for letting me borrow your cupcake display rack. It looked great!

Then we all headed back downstairs for some games and prizes!!

This is a Hannah Montana wig that Madison got from one of her friends. I still can't believe that my little girl is 7 years old. I think the birthday marathon is over now. Thanks to everyone for the cards, gifts, phone calls and visits to help make Madison's birthday extra special.

Happy 7th Birthday Madison

This is what a 7 year old girl looks like when she first wakes up in the morning! Happy Birthday Madi Sue! I still can't believe you are 7 years old.
This is what she looks like once she's all ready for school.

She's listening to her Aunt Sheila and cousins Marissa, Makayla and Myah sing "happy birthday" to her on the phone.

She wanted to go to Red Robin for dinner since the "balloon guy" was going to be there. He made her this really cool balloon crown. From the smile on her face... do you think she liked it?

Austin got a cool dragon balloon and Miles got a creepy looking Elmo balloon. Oh well, we all had a great time. Madison is really looking forward to her day of fun on Saturday. You'll have to stay tuned into this blog to find out what happens...

Extra Extra

Here is a recent picture of our dining room. Notice the sconces hanging on the wall on each side of my curio cabinet. Okay, also notice the beautiful flowers on the table too that I won as a door prize at the Pepsi Winterfest we attended on Saturday night. Actually one of Brian's coworkers won them and didn't want them so he gave them to me. ANYWAY... I was trying to figure out what to put in the sconces. Candles... rocks with a tea light on top... potpourri??? Then it hit me...
How about gravel and live betta fish???? Can I just tell you how ridiculously excited my kids were that we were getting 2 pet fish? It made me feel bad that because of my dog and cat allergies that this is what it has come to. 2 pet fish hanging on the wall in our dining room. I think they look great so I'm pretty happy with them. Madison talks to her fish several times a day and here she is doing fishy lips at him. They even followed our tradition of naming our kids after capitals. So Madison named her fish London and Austin named his Jackson.

Austin is getting pretty good at playing bowling on the Wii. I think in one game he got 5 or 6 strikes in a row. So Dustin challenged him to a game and can you believe they tied at 205? I was so happy because Austin still talks about losing to his nana on Christmas day.

Proof is in the picture!

Happy New Year

I know, I know... I said I wasn't going to post every poker winner's picture. But when one of us girls actually win... you bet I'm going to post that picture. Way to go Kristi!!!
New Year's Eve is also Sarah and Dustin's anniversary! Happy anniversary you two!

This is how the girls celebrated the new year.... silly string fight out in the snow! Looks fun, doesn't it? There was silly string for the boys too, but they were inside playing the Wii.


I was so excited to see the snow was the good packing kind. So I whipped up this little snowman on my back porch.

Here is Miles enjoying some sparkling grape juice on his first New Years Eve. SO CUTE!!!